Cheerios vs. the FDA

As a concerned citizen, I have been following the Cheerios/FDA scandal over the past week with keen interest. After all, 26.4% of our one-year supply of cold-cereal is some form of Cheerios (Honey Nut, Fruity, Multi-Grain, Regular, with Metamucil, and Super-mallow crunch). Up until the news broke, I had not realized the hazard this breakfast cereal posed. In the words of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, “The agency said that claiming the cereal can lower cholesterol levels by 4% in six weeks amounts to marketing it as a drug and violates the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.” Clearly, I needed a prescription to purchase these Cheerios for food storage. I don’t know whether I should feel clever for getting a regulated medication without a prescription, or concerned for letting my children abuse prescription drugs. What if my children don’t finish their cereal and it gets soggy, can I dump it down the sink? Would that add to the unintentional medication of society, like the Prozac/water problem in Utah county? Can I throw it away in the trash without using a biohazard bag?

Of course, in a prepared statement, General Mills said, “The scientific body of evidence supporting the heart health claim was the basis for FDA’s approval of the heart health claim, and the clinical study supporting Cheerios’ cholesterol-lowering benefit is very strong.” This would have been more comforting had they admitted their claims were false, now I really do have to worry about possible side-effects and other drug interactions. Is there a risk of dependency? What happens to Cheerio prices when a prescription is required? $50 an ounce? How will Mormons be able to afford to medicate their children during sacrament meeting? Will junior high kids start smuggling Cheerios to school? What about cheap Mexican imports and generic brands, are they safe? I’m going to have a panic attack just thinking about it.

To make matters worse, according to the USAToday there’s more, “companies that make claims about their whole grain foods are supposed to mention that fruits and vegetables are also part of a fiber-rich diet. General Mills' labeling does not include that information. ‘Therefore, your claim does not convey that all these factors together reduce the risk of heart disease and does not enable the public to understand the significance of the claim in the context of total daily diet,’ states the FDA.” If I had only known that I needed fruits and vegetables as part of my fiber-rich diet! I thought that because regular Cheerios showed a picture of sliced strawberries on the box, that the fruit part of my diet was taken care of; that all the strawberry goodness I needed was on the box. How could I have been so foolish?!

Just as I was coming to terms with my new Cheerios reality this broke, “Last week, the [Food and Drug Administration] scolded General Mills for claiming that Cheerios lowers your cholesterol by 10 percent. Well, they're not stopping there. Today, under pressure, Captain Crunch admitted he lied about his military record.” It was on the Tonight Show. Now I have to start worrying about the rest of my cold-cereal food storage. The whole scandal has caused a spike in my blood-pressure. I probably need to eat more Cheerios.

Blog 2: I’m Ba-a-ack

After briefly blogging last January and February, I blew-up my blog in March. Over the past couple of weeks, both people who had read it commented, “What happened to your blog?” With that outpouring of support and insistent encouragement, I decided I would try again. I knew it would be difficult, but I couldn’t let my faithful readers down. I had to carry on, for the good of society. So, without further ado, welcome to my new blog. Isn’t it lovely? Both of my fans can once again tell me how wonderful I am.

The Sticky

Every year, we dye Easter Eggs a little differently. We tried translucent egg stickers (they look so much better on the box, literally). We tried an egg crayon that keeps part of the egg from absorbing any dye (don’t press too hard). We tried making our own dyes out of food coloring and vinegar. This year we tried something new: glitter.

Along with the usual dye tablets, egg-dipper (we already have a half dozen from prior egg dying experiments) and instructions, the kit came with a bunch of silvery, sparkly glitter and an extra packet of “sticky” powder that when mixed with water would coat the colored egg and adhere the glitter to the egg. So after uneventfully dying a few eggs, Katie and I decided to add glitter to her plain blue egg. Katie put her egg “in the sticky” and we rolled in around a bit to get it nice and covered. Unfortunately, the sticky removed most of the color from the egg, leaving it a pale, pathetic version of its former self. When Katie moved the egg from the sticky to the glitter bag, the glitter clumped onto the egg in round, sparkling sores and ugly, glittering gashes. While I’m sure the company meant well, it must have copied the tri-methyl benzoate concoction used by a crazed Christopher Lloyd to kill cartoons in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”

After that, Jordan, Sarah and Katie tried to dip their eggs only in the glitter and pleaded, “Don’t put my egg in The Sticky!”

Perhaps it was the panic in Sarah’s voice that did it, but near the end of the dyeing, Julie got an evil gleam in her eye. “This egg is going in The Sticky!”

“No! Not my egg!”

“Yes, your egg. Ha, ha, ha, ha,” then came the heart-rending cries of egg in the color-flesh-eating Sticky; the faux distress of children as their precious Easter eggs faded and then clumped.

“Into the Sticky! Into the Sticky!” and with that, Julie began the egg-icidal round-up. No one’s eggs were spared. When all that remained were two un-dyed eggs (one of them mine), Julie smiled: super-dye suicide. It consisted of dipping an egg in each color successively, for a marvelous mauve-brown look. When she finished and left her egg to dry, it was my turn. I refused to let my egg commit super-dye suicide. Julie insisted. A great struggle of wills commenced. I finally, triumphantly, plopped my egg into a lovely blue color. That’s when Julie added all of the other dyes to the glass containing my egg. It was a spectacularly indescribable color.

Then, of course, the last of the eggs was ceremoniously marched into The Sticky. It was terrible. It was gruesome. It was disgusting.

It was the best time we ever had dying Easter Eggs. I highly recommend The Sticky.